Fifth Annual Metaphysically Fit Fest

A critique

Aristotle’s Metaphysics identifies the science of being as spiritual, eternal, and theological.

Metaphysics then, or the study of beings and their being, thus marries philosophy, hermetic tradition, and the rootedness of philosophy within all manner of spiritual practices.

I stumbled into the festival in withdrawal from coffee, very hungry because I hadn’t yet been able to eat breakfast, and thus disoriented. I had never been to Yorkville before.

Looking completely strung out, washed up, I desperately asked the women manning the check-in table where I might find some breakfast and coffee.

A few steps beyond the table a human-sized fairy asked me if I wanted a hug.

I said sure and the hug was full of simple electric voluptutous grace and sincerity. The free-hugger was not fucking around.

I found coffee at an ice cream shop twenty metres from the festival grounds.

Never one to ignore my caloric and good fat needs, nor the fact that sugar is good for the heart, I of course opted for an iced coffee with a scoop of Heaps of Love (Oreos, brownies, cookie dough, pecans, chocolate and caramel ripples in vanilla ice cream) for $3.

It is worth noting that the ice cream worker accidentally put three scoops of Heaps of Love into my iced coffee.

My next task was to recycle a plastic cup that held undrinkable coffee that I could not drink.

Just minutes after my arrival at the festival, I ascertained that the elected officials of Yorkville do not feel recycling is important.

Households are able to recycle, but businesses and the festival as a whole cannot, because the city is not sustainable.

The privileged business model, garbage for profit is exactly what it sounds like: garbage for profit.


The schedule was not posted before the festival so it was impossible to “make a plan” in order to maximize metaphysical fest festing.

In addition, there was no map and it took me a long time to figure out where the tents stages and yoga classes were located.

Before coffee or breakfast, I searched the entire festival grounds for both those things without success.

I was 100% disoriented.


Sandalwood Scent

So I wandered about noncommittally just trying to find my way. Harem pants waving in the wind caught my eye and I tried some on.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were extremely comfortable.

I could not buy any though because I am more than 30g in the hole and waiting to start a new job.

The woman attending to the booth had shown some other women a mysterious powder and I asked what it was.

“Perfume” she said, with old world authority.

She retreived the hidden vial and with it a couple milligrams of the powder.

A few drops later it exploded into a bouquet that smelled sacred.

“Rub it on your wrists and neck,” she instructed.

The perfume was so strong I hesitated but then I did what she told me.

Sun beat down on me so hard the duration of the festival that I burned like spiritual-grade incense.


A Serious Metaphysical Disagreement with a Teacher Training Teacher

Not going to name any names here, but I approached a teacher training teacher, interested in teacher training and she got my goat.

Like another yoga teacher, she engaged in victim-blaming, tacitly silenced me through her unpardonable discursive gestures, suggested a thousand ways that the fact of victimization is somehow the fault of victims in spite of the reality that our world is one in which predators are privileged above their prey, the unrelentingly greedy and aggressive are rewarded most of all, and put her negative IQ on obscene display by invalidating, mocking, and claiming perspectival superiority repeatedly, thereby causing me significant social gêne.

She was so unrelentingly patronizing that finally I made it clear that I needed to walk away from a situation that was intellectually degrading, morally insulting, and spiritually toxic.

Go straight to hell, do not pass Go, toxic teacher training teacher.


5 minute heartfulness meditation

Shaking with anger and the intensity of spiritual wars that needs must be fought, I happened upon a nonprofit tent that read heartfulness.

A woman at the booth kindly explained her mission and embarked me on a guided meditation.

I relaxed immediately, and felt the fully positive effects of meditation.

Happy that five minutes of my time had been spent so well, I dialogued with my guide.

Shockingly, all the meditation activities hosted by the group are free and meant to promote peace and understanding, to help kids and adults throw off the hard yoke of life, for the benefit of all.

I cannot say enough positive things about this approach or organization, that it is free, and that they have gone beyond mere capitalistic alchemy and attained a purely spiritual implication: offering their guidance and practice to all, perfectly free of any limitations created by capitalism.

It is also worth saying that they were the only booth at the festival that was not trying to make money, and I grant that this organization was by far the most metaphysically sound one present because they were fulfilling a spiritual imperative for all, available to all, free from evil, free from money.

Money is marked with blood. Money is dirty.

Heartfulness is spiritually pure and not for-profit, unlike so many “spritual” communities run by charlatans, hypocrites and liars.


Nature

During a yoga class run by an Ayurvedic Health Counselor I grabbed her attention to tell her there were three eagles circling us.

She had been careful to ground us in our natural surroundings — the Fox River rushing by, sunshine and greens galore, and the earth speeding through the universe at its usual velocity.

But once again, the festival was not sustainable and I had heard on the radio that the Fox River has been contaminated and compromised by all manner of toxic matter — sewage, septic systems, all sorts of trash and pollution.

People were playing in the water nonetheless as if it were 1769!

Which brings me to the bottom line: yoga vinyassas and festing are great, but our energies may have been better spent cleaning out the Fox River and doing anything in our power to save it from further toxic contamination & pollution.

How many more species need to go extinct, how many reefs and rainforests must go the way of the dodo, how many polar bears must die of unnatural causes, how many icebergs must melt, how many indicator species must vanish before we wake the fuck up?

How will we ever learn just how irreplaceable our natural matrimony is?

Everyone at the festival was 100% taking the beautiful natural setting and the earth for granted, farting around, having fun, and because there was no sustainable infrastructure or recycling the festival itself was both wasteful and toxic.

Community

Music was playing, the sun was shining, most people were engaged with hearts and minds into some sort of spiritual practice.

There was not any way not to get a contact high, to soak up the sun, the love, the good vibes, and the full potentiality of human healing — collectively.

Inclusiveness

In spite of intelligent and poetic words about inclusion in the festival literature—sadly I would have to give the festival an “F” if I graded it on its inclusiveness — I could have counted the number of black people present on one hand and the POC present on both hands — the festival was not at all respesentative of either US population or local populations and could have stood to gain a lot by including a lot more people who were not white.

the festival was demographically homogenous and more effort needs to be made to include POC


Plant Intelligence

While suffering under the strain of French harcèlement morale (workplace bullying I had already experienced as an au pair in Le Vésinet, a suburb of Paris the year before), insomnia, and post-trauma shock, I started trying plant-based supplements because I could not afford to go to the doctor.

They started as a simple wish for healing cheaper than the alternatives.

The first one I tried was bacopa. Holy basil, ginger, tumeric, and peppers are some of my other favorites. Lately my daily multivitamin has several protective mushrooms. That is a deliberate choice.

Soon the delicate gears of my mind were turning with a new efficacy that exhilerated me. My dreams became more colorful and vivid. Memories came flowing back to me with a clarity I had never felt before.

The power of my mind itself became a conscious and comfortable reality, after so many different incidents of trauma had caused me so much deep pain and doubt.

Suffice it to say that I was very interested in the plant-based healing present at the Metaphysically Fit Festival.

I went to a master workshop on plant-based healing and felt a great deal of honest intellectual excitement.

I couldn’t resist trying to get a good portrait of the teacher

At the end, the teacher unveiled their favorite strains of bud in full orgiastic blossom.

It seemed like a cute joke we were all in on to not call the class “Mary Jane as Mother Healer” instead of “Nature as Medicine — Healing Power of Plants” as the talk was actaully titled in the festival literature.

Almost as soon as I caught the moment in all its smiling beauty, the cops literally showed up, bringing some pretty creepy vibes.

They had no business stalking us though, because the talk was about the medicinal properties of plants and no one was doing anything illegal whatosever.

(FUCK THE POLICE)


So, I have a few suggestions for next year:

  • Fair trade coffee and espresso
  • Salad, i.e. more local sustainable farms selling their fresh from the farm goods
  • Filtered Water for all, clearly available (the festival gave me my first sunburn in 5 years; I had to stop dead in Vinyassa yoga class because I was so thirsty) because it is July and the sun is hot, the festival is attended by children and the elderly, who could all conceivably suffer a heat stroke in such hot weather
  • Bread and pastries (Baker Miller?)
  • Everything sustainable: COMPOST, Zero Waste
  • Make Whole Foods a partner.

Bottom Line

The city of Yorkville is not metaphysically fit and the festival itself cannot be either on moral, spiritual, and intellectual grounds if there is no recycling.

“Dat French King”

Written by

A humorous blog about wanting only the best. Product reviews and musings for a Conscience-Driven Economy. #mindbodyconsciousness #Care #Intellectualism

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